


get it right this time (get it off your mind)

by Cerberusia



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: You loved him so much, you thought you might die from it; the enormous, aching love threatened to consume you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this was a bloody long time in the making. Apparently I started working on this in July last year, but I have to be honest with you, it feels like it took a LOT longer. It also ended up being twice as long as I originally expected, which seems to be a thing with me right now. After writing virtually everything in the 1-3K range for a decade, suddenly I'm regularly producing 5K+? Weird. Maybe I've gained more patience as I've grown up. One can hope.

For once, the court is quiet when you get to it. There's usually a couple of young guys with nothing better to do casually throwing a ball around, but the humid air is still. Your shirt sticks to your skin, and you see Taiga's has moulded to the curve of his back. You're used to it, since Tokyo in summer has similar weather, but the unpleasantly sticky feeling is hard to ignore.

You play: Taiga goes for dunks, you stick to form-perfect three-pointers. You mark each other as closely as you can without fouling, Taiga's torso only ever an inch or two away from yours, your legs tangled without touching. You can feel the heat coming off him through your light clothes.

You win, of course: in time, Taiga will pose a challenge, but as yet he's still too inexperienced. Taiga concedes the victory, grinning, and promptly tackles you to the ground - though not too hard on the rough court. Taiga lands solidly on top of you, momentarily knocking the breath out of you, until you use your slight height and weight advantage to roll you both over and pin him. He wriggles under you like an eel; when he starts bucking his hips in an attempt to knock you off, you quickly let go. There are things that Taiga isn't ready for yet.

Evening is closing in, darker but still muggy with heat. Taiga's house is closer to the court you usually use, but yours has the better sound system, so it's your mom you help with the dinner and your couch you both sit cross-legged on to watch Cloverfield and feel vindicated that it's always New York that gets destroyed: if anything tries to nuke the planet, you'll be fine on the West Coast.

Halfway through the film, Taiga migrates from his side of the couch to leaning on you; you wriggle a little so your legs aren't going to sleep, and ponder the propriety of putting an arm around your friend. Even in LA, that's probably pushing it. You slip your arm around his waist anyway.

Taiga is already rubbing his eyes on the way to bed. He's already called his parents to ask to stay over at yours; they always say yes.

Lather, rinse, repeat. That's how it was in LA, when you were both still in middle school. You spoke both English and Japanese to each other, even in the same sentence, but never used suffixes except in play: you were Tatsuya and Taiga to everyone. Halcyon days, despite the bitter seed of inferiority sprouting in your stomach, growing up your throat to choke you.

You loved him so much, you thought you might die from it; the enormous, aching love threatened to consume you. You laid awake at night thinking about Taiga, like a love-sick girl - and you _were_ love-sick, sick with love, full of nauseous wanting.

Taiga left; you replayed the fight and your matches over and over behind your eyelids. You assumed that, unfed, your fever would abate; that some day, you would think of him without aching.

Almost two years on, Taiga has grown up. You recognise him immediately: your vision blurs, your ears buzz, and for one awful moment you think you might actually faint like a Victorian heroine. You swallow over and over, your tongue thick and leaden in your dry mouth, and take your first proper look at Taiga since he left.

Your first thought is that he looks _good_. Then you feel a little bit embarrassed for being such a cliche, because you're still in love with him and he clearly hasn't the faintest idea. When he turns to his little shadow with such unconscious intimacy, for one awful moment you feel like you could cry.

The moment passes. You smile at Taiga. You show him your Mirage Shot. You take Atsushi for ice cream and try not to think about the aching empty hole in you.

It hasn't got any _better_ , is the thing. Two years is surely long enough for any passion to cool, but you're just as obsessed as you were when you were fourteen. There's something wrong with you, and you don't know how to make it better.

You don't say anything more about it to Atsushi on the train back. He tells the rest of the team you ran into someone you knew, and you explain briefly that you know the new guy on the Seirin team from LA. You were friends, but fell out of contact. It's the truth, basically. You tell everyone he's a strong basketball player, which is what they're interested in.

It's nearly a week later that someone brings it up again.

"Hey, are you going to see that Kagami guy again?" Atsushi is lying prone on his bed, one eye visible between strands of wet hair - you'd both showered after practice.

"No, I don't think so, not for a while. The journey to Tokyo and back is too long, even for an open weekend."

"Mm." Atsushi keeps watching you. He doesn't say, _You could ring him up,_ or _You could text him._ Atsushi's not dumb, though he's good at pretending to be sometimes. You both know you're not going to.

So that's the last you see of him before the match. You end up confessing some of your feelings to Atsushi a few nights before: the inadequacy, the sense of holding back.

"Maa, we'll see," is all he says, crumpling up his maiubo wrapper. It's not resounding emotional support, but that's never what Atsushi offers. Besides, he's right. You'll see. Everybody will see. Even Alex, you discover, will see. Did she really fly over just to finish teaching Taiga? You don't know what to make of that. You know she wouldn't have come to Japan just for _you_.

Taiga appears on the court in his Seirin jersey. Your heart turns over when you catch sight of him. The forked eyebrows, the wide mouth - that's Taiga. But he's all grown up now, and you hungrily catalogue the muscles in his arms, legs, shoulders, all you couldn't see at the five-on-five. You want very badly to see him with his shirt off. You arrange yourself next to him for the tip-off instead.

"Tatsuya." He looks at you through his hair. "To be honest, I didn't want to play against you." He shrugs his massive shoulders. "I wanted everything to be like before."

_So did I, Taiga._ You don't say that. You each swear to play your hardest, and step back with hard smiles.

Next to you, Atsushi is trying to intimidate the Seirin Center. For once, it doesn't look like it's working. You eye him up: Kiyoshi Teppei, one of the Uncrowned Kings. He looks totally relaxed and affable under Atsushi's fierce glare. He's one to be wary of.

The match starts.

You don't remember much, afterwards. You and Taiga promised not to hold back and shit-talked each other, you know, though the details of what was said elude you. You do remember slapping Atsushi hard across the face. It had barely fazed him, though you know you could have broken his cheekbone - but your tears dripping on his face effected a change, elicited emotions you didn't think anybody except Akashi Seijuurou could bring out in Atsushi.

The worst thing is, you actually think you might win. You cling hopefully to this possibility all the way up until Taiga's new best friend knocks the ball from Murasakibara's huge hands, leaving the score at 72-73, to Seirin.

You all line up. You can't look at Atsushi. You look at Kiyoshi in front of him instead, and for a moment you hate him intensely. You hear Okamura acknowledging your loss and Seirin's captain accepting it, and hate them too.

The lines break up. Atsushi goes over to Kuroko, Fukui shakes hands with the sharp-eyed PF, and Taiga makes a beeline for you.

"I lost, Taiga." Your voice comes out steady. It doesn't sound like yours. "As I promised...I won't call myself your brother any more."

"...Yeah, fine..." Taiga doesn't look happy about it. Of course, he never wanted to stop calling you 'big brother'. It was something you decided on your own, selfishly.

You go back to your own bench. Atsushi sits slumped with his elbows on his knees, a towel over his head. If his shoulders weren't heaving, he'd look like he was praying. You smile. He really is childish.

"Let's win next time, Atsushi!" You can't win against Taiga yourself, but Atsushi hasn't yet reached his full potential. In a one-on-one, you'd lose: but it's not wishful thinking to believe that next year a match between Seirin and Yosen might have a different outcome.

Atsushi doesn't agree with you, of course. 'Do your best' is not a phrase in his vocabulary. He just cries and swears he's quitting. Nobody believes him.

After you've both showered, you take the opportunity to hug him: a proper tight squeeze, none of that manly American back-slapping shit. You're expecting him to go still, tolerate it for a few seconds, then shove you off, maybe embarrassed; but instead, the two of you alone in the locker room, he puts his long arms around you and briefly hugs you back.

"Your returnee habits are really weird, Muro-chin." He rests his chin atop your head before letting go. He's huge and solid and so comforting that you think _you_ might cry for a second. You know people think you're the Odd Couple, and it's true that there are other people at Yosen - on the team, even - who are much more personable, much more friendly, and just downright more normal. But you're fiercely glad you picked Atsushi the moment you saw him.

It would be so much more convenient, you think as you both leave the locker room, if you could fall in love with Atsushi instead. He wouldn't reciprocate any more than Taiga does, but you might get sex out of it.

But the moment you turn from Dreadlocks Guy (you only wanted to apologise to Alex, this has got so out of hand) to see Taiga racing towards you, you know all over again that that's it. His blazing eyes, his heaving chest - you couldn't feel like this about anyone else.

What could he have wanted to ask you?

_"Weren't you here for something, Taiga?"_

_"Hmmm, yeah. My bad...it's not the time for that any more. I'll tell you later. Definitely!"_

What sort of answer is that? _What was he going to say?_

You're in a funk for days, thinking about it over and over, obsessing. Luckily so does your whole team, so you don't stand out. You've all got a lot to be upset about. You do a lot of baking with Atsushi and watch a lot of dramas with Okamura and the others. It almost takes your mind off it.

Alex thinks you're being stupid. She's right, even though she practically had to put you in an armlock to get you to admit that you were in the wrong to issue such a stupid challenge in the first place. You introduced Taiga to basketball; you taught him how to dribble, how to shoot; Taiga always thought you were wonderful, perfect. How can you go on calling yourself his 'big brother' when he's proved himself so much better than you? But that was never what it was about, for Taiga. Secretly, it wasn't entirely what it was about for you either.

_"But, being brothers and rivals...is it really that difficult to be both?"_

_Taiga, I don't want us to be brothers._ But you couldn't say that, because Taiga would ask why, and the real reason was that you wanted to do things to him that people did not ordinarily do with their brothers. _I don't want us to be brothers, I want us to be lovers._ It's pointless even to imagine: you already know he's not interested. In his little ghost-like 'Shadow', maybe, but not in you.

You spend days twisting in jealousy. You pump Atsushi for more information on Kuroko Tetsuya, even more than you did after the five-on-five where you first met him. It's pointless - you can hardly mount a campaign from all the way up in Akita - but Atsushi's middle-school recollections fuel your image of Kuroko as as perfect complement to Taiga.

You're allowed to go and watch the finals, even though you're not competing in them. Coach Araki wants you to learn a thing or two. You spend the bus ride down watching dramas on your phone, a splitter cable enabling both you and Atsushi to listen at the same time. They're all American, so you occasionally take a minute to sum up the action for him. He usually gets the gist anyway, but sometimes he pretends he's got completely the wrong end of the stick just to annoy you.

You're getting water from a vending machine - Atsushi beside you making careful decisions about what snacks he's going to buy - when your phone buzzes in your pocket. It's an unknown number.

_west court in five_

You can guess the trajectory - Taiga asks Kuroko who asks Atsushi who does as asked - but rational thought is subsumed by your heart beating in your throat. It's embarrassing that Taiga still makes you feel like this.

You're there in three.

You feel the familiar ache of longing when you see Taiga's figure on the sidelines. Taiga isn't in his jersey yet, just wearing his team jacket over a t-shirt. He looks very grown-up. You can see him going pro in a few years. Will he mention you in interviews?

He calls you 'Tatsuya'. You like it: nobody over here calls you by your first name. The secluded, empty court does things to your imagination, but you know it's only wishful thinking.

"But...in the end, I really do...want things betwen you and me to go back to the way they were before-"

"Enough of that." You cut him off sharply. You can see it's hard for him to say these things, because he can't tell how you'll react, and you don't want to hurt him any more. "I'm the one who should be apologising. I'm sorry for everything, Taiga." You're really, really sory.

It all comes tumbling out. "I want us to play again...I was selfish..." Because you were, you were selfish, and you hurt Taiga because of it and he didn't deserve it, not one bit. And you want to play against him again so badly. You want him to show you his basketball again, all that power and drive, just for you.

_"As enemies, and as brothers."_ You'll settle for what you can get. You walk away from him first, so you don't have to watch his retreating back.

And that's that. Seirin win the Winter Cup, deservedly. You finally understand what Atsushi's deal with 'Aka-chin' is all about. You're not sure if you want to meet the famous (and evidently batshit crazy) Akashi Seijuurou or not. If you keep hanging around with Atsushi, you're pretty sure you're going to some day.

You and Taiga text, a few times a day. Just ordinary, casual things: basketball, teammates, school, weather. Tokyo has snow; Akita has a _lot_ of snow, and you take pictures to prove it. You include one of Atsushi bundled up in five layers, complete with fluffy earmuffs, looking tremendously sulky. Taiga won't care, but it might amuse Kuroko.

For the New Year break you go to Atsushi's. You've met his sister and one of his brothers before, and think you're more or less prepared to spend two weeks with seven presumably purple-haired giants, all of whom regard you with great indulgence.

You rapidly discover that you are not, in fact, prepared, but it's fine anyway. When it all gets too loud you slip away with Atsushi's dad, who is a tall (but _normally_ tall) professor of Physics with black hair, glasses and a wicked sense of humour.

"Ah, Emiko-chan has always been such a spitfire," he says fondly, as Mrs. Murasakibara (six feet in height, purple of hair, generous of bosom) roundly rebukes her youngest and second youngest for trying to steal half the mixing bowl. You would be a little frightened, but you can tell she's trying not to laugh.

It must be nice, you think, to have a family like this. You spare a thought for your parents, off on a humanitarian mission in Cambodia or Vietnam or somewhere - you've lost track of their travel itinerary again. Well, you're sure they're enjoying themselves. It was always what they wanted to do, after all. You were only a temporary distraction.

On the third of January, Taiga invites you over.

_its literally just me_ the text reads. _ill cook_. Your heart and stomach turn over. You have to take a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Once your internal organs have stopped palpitating, you spend an enjoyable few minutes imagining just what you and Taiga could get up to all alone his in apartment while Atsushi is in the bath. Then you text back:

_I'll be there._

You assume he's inviting you for lunch and you'll be home by dinner, but while Atsushi's getting dressed and dripping all over the place, he adds:

_we can fight over the bed_

This then starts your mind off on a very pleasant track that you probably shouldn't get too into while Atsushi's in the room.

"You're smiling at your phone, Muro-chin," Atsushi tells you, decent at last and vigorously towelling his hair. "It's creepy, stop it." You beam at him affectionately until he looks embarrassed and turns away to finish drying his hair.

Telling him that Taiga has invited you over the next evening and you'll be spending the night gets a slow eyebrow raise and a "Mm~"

"It'll be fine," you say firmly. "We made up, it's all fine, nobody is going to cry or hit anybody else in the face with a basketball."

Atsushi doesn't look entirely convinced. You don't feel entirely convinced. Luckily, at that moment Mrs. Murasakibara announces dinner in a ladylike bellow, and all such considerations are put aside as the family Murasakibara stampede to the table.

So, Tokyo. So, Taiga. You traverse the snowy streets with your phone out in front of you, relying on Google Maps to show you the way. You keep looking around at the buildings, the people. You've been back in Japan nearly a year, but you're still not used to it. You feel as foreign as Wei, sometimes.

Taiga's apartment is in a nice part of Shibuya, not far from the stadium where the Winter Cup was held. It's supposed to be Taiga's father's apartment, he told you, but right now his work is in the U.S and is expected to stay so for the foreseeable, so he hasn't been back in months. Taiga says he likes having the apartment to himself. Taiga has also casually mentioned that he has a double bed, which you keep thinking about, particularly whether Taiga is going to be a gentleman and squeeze you into it with him, and how you're ever going to be able to sleep if he does.

You press the buzzer before you can overthink things. The intercom crackles to life barely a second later. Has he been waiting for you to arrive? Is he as excited as you are?

"Come on up!" he says, staticky but clear, and the door unlocks for you. You take the stairs two at a time, racing to the top floor.

You get to a floor below, and force yourself to stop. You don't want to look desperate. Even if you are.

Your legs itch with the desire to bound up the stairs - or anywhere, really. Nervousness always gives you a strong desire to run. Not run away, just run.

You walk up the last flight of stairs instead. Your stomach is roiling.

You don't even get within knocking distance of the door before it's flung open before you - and there he is, Taiga in the flesh, right up close. You think he might have had a haircut in the past week. He's wearing your ring around his neck, over a soft-looking black sweater. You want to hug him so badly your arms ache.

"Tatsuya!" And he hugs _you_ , just briefly. You end up with your nose jammed into his neck and discover that he smells exactly like he used to. The smell takes you back across the Pacific in the blink of an eye. You never thought you'd get to smell Taiga again. He still uses the same laundry soap.

You squeeze him back tightly - more tightly than you meant to, but Taiga's embrace is verging on rib-cracking so you figure it's OK. He really _has_ missed you. Not as much as you've missed him, inevitably, but he's missed you.

"What kept you? I thought you'd fallen on the stairs and sprained your ankle!" He scowls at you. You beam back.

"Well, you know, had to stop for a minute to comb my hair and put on some more lipgloss~" He thumps you gently in the shoulder, laughing. He used to tease you about being 'vain' in middle school, joking whenever you took longer in the bathroom that you were touching up your makeup. Juvenile, but it made you happy because it meant he'd noticed you were good-looking.

"Here, come in, come in." He shoos you inside, pausing briefly to let you wriggle out of your shoes in the genkan. "Sorry for the mess," he adds perfunctorily.

There is no mess. The living room is spotless - a sore contrast to your dorm at Yousen. You're sure he wasn't this neat three years ago. There's even a little cactus on the cabinet. You can see over his shoulder that the kitchen spice rack is full.

"Wow, Taiga," you say, turning around in the middle of the room to get the full picture, "you really _have_ grown up. Look at you, sixteen and living on your own, not even a centerfold pull-out on the wall..."

Taiga wrinkles his nose. "You sound like my grandpa or something. And do I really seem like the kind of guy who'd plaster the living room walls with naked chicks?"

You have to admit that he doesn't. You don't add that in your opinion he's very unlikely to give a damn about naked chicks, unless they're Alex and literally in his bed, at which point he would kick them out in embarrassment. You're not quite sure if Taiga's had that realisation yet.

"Keep thinking I might stick up some posters of players, though," he adds. "I don't think Dad would mind so long as I didn't go too wild. Hey, you hungry?"

You're a six-foot teenage boy who leads a physically active lifestyle. You're _always_ hungry.

You open your mouth to tell him this, but Taiga cuts you off, rolling his eyes and saying, "What am I saying, you're on the basketball team, of course you're hungry." He turns around and heads for the kitchen. "Just dump your bag in my room - it's the one on the right."

It feels illicit to step inside Taiga's room by yourself, even though he told you to. There's a western-style bed - double, as promised - and loads of posters of basketballers up on the walls. Michael Jordan is prominent, as is Kobe Bryant, stuck up there next to Tim Duncan and LeBron James - the classic and the modern. You drop your duffle bag at the foot of Taiga's bed, mentally calculating how someone might go about fitting two fairly large teenage boys into it - and then you notice the picture frame. And the picture in it.

You don't remember the exact day this photo was taken: Alex took lots of photos of the three of you. You still have a few of them, but not on this side of the Pacific. When you moved back over here you deliberately left them behind. You were trying to leave your feelings behind too: but your imagination was more vivid than the photographs.

You look so _happy_.

You have to take a deep breath, and another, willing the tremor in your shoulders to subside. It's on his bedside table, right where he'd see it, first thing in the morning or last thing at night. It's _right there_.

How would he explain this, if he had come in here with you? Or would he think there was nothing to explain?

You run your hand through your hair, deliberately relax your shoulders, and leave Taiga's room.

"You get lost or something?" Taiga is heating up oil in a skillet. He's wearing an apron. Several fantasies immediately spring to life.

"No, no, just admiring your posters. Michael Jordan's still your favourite, huh?"

"Of course!" Taiga swirls the oil vigorously. "He's still the greatest basketball player of all time." He snorts. "Kuroko keeps saying that Kobe's catching up, but he's not gonna get there."

"Atsushi's a fan of Tim Duncan." You come up behind Taiga and watch him test the oil's heat, frowning in concentration, a cute little wrinkle between his brows. "He was hymning his praises a few weeks ago. It's the most I've heard him say at once that wasn't about candy."

"Mm, Duncan's great, but kinda boring." The oil has begun to smoke. Taiga tips in the strips of meat, which immediately begin to sizzle. "He's a solid player, totally solid, but there's no flash. It's not stylish."

"But he's dependable," you point out, passing him a wooden spoon from the rack. "He works hard and plays a psychological game. I like him for that."

"Sure, he's dependable, sure, he works hard. But at that level _everyone_ works hard. I'm not saying he's not a great player, because he is, he totally is, one of the all-time greats - but he's not got the daring of someone like MJ, you know? He's not _exciting_."

"Maybe I should give you Atsushi's number and the two of you can hash it out," you say mildly. These are all the same arguments you've made to Atsushi yourself, but coming from Taiga's mouth they carry an extra sting. _Not exciting._

"That guy? Ugh, no thanks. He'll probably make fun of my eyebrows again." You could claim here that that was simply an unfortunate first meeting - but no, that would be a lie. Atsushi really is always like that.

"He's just jealous, Taiga. You have _lovely_ eyebrows." You bat your lashes at him when he turns to give you the hairy eyeball. He's gone a bit pink. He's fun to tease. You genuinely do think his forked eyebrows are cute. At this angle his jaw looks fantastically chiseled, and it's making you a bit weak in the knees.

Taiga makes a _harrumph_ noise in his throat and turns to add vegetables to the pan. "There's pickles in the cupboard," he says without looking up. _Which cupboard?_ you almost say, but instead you point to the most likely-looking cabinet, and he grunts affirmatively. You bet you can guess which drawer he keeps his cutlery in too.

There is indeed a collection of pickle jars. You take several out of the cupboard and set about happily arranging their into bowls - stealing a few strands of beni shoga in the process. Crunchy, sour and ginger-y. So satisfying.

"You still really love them, huh?" Taiga is doing something with an egg that you can only see out of the corner of your eye. He's so confident in the kitchen. You like it at the same time as it makes you feel slightly inadequate.

"Uh-huh," you confirm, setting the bowls on the coffee table, since there's no table in the kitchen. "No need to ask whether _you_ still have a passion for cheeseburgers." Half the time you texted him he seemed to be in Maji Burger.

"I mean, I've made my own, but the Maji Burger ones are more satisfying, somehow." The sizzling of the pan increases. "Because they're less healthy, probably." He's so focussed on the pan that you can watch the nape of his neck without fear of being asked why you're staring.

The rice cooker beeps, startling you - you hadn't realised it was on.

"Great, we're ready," Taiga announces, turning off the hob and the rice cooker at the same time. "Tatsuya, you get the bowls and chopsticks."

You reach up to where you're sure the bowls are kept, and you say - and you don't know what stupid impulse makes you say it -

"Haha, Taiga, you really _have_ grown up."

And there must be something weird in your tone, because instead of laughing and saying something about how he's taller than you now, Taiga stops pouring out stirfry into a serving bowl and turns to face you.

"Yeah, I have. Of course I have, it's been three years." He digs out a serving spoon without looking. "What, are we going to have this talk again?"

You can't face him. Taiga's chopsticks have pretty abstract designs on the square ends, and you search for two matching pairs in the cutlery drawer.

"Taiga," you say - quietly, gently - "you're so much better than me, you - you've outgrown me."

"I don't care," says Taiga fiercely, "you'll _always_ be my brother."

You bite your lip and keep rooting through the drawer for matching chopsticks. _But what if I don't want to be your brother, Taiga? What if I want something else?_

"Tatsuya?" Taiga comes to stand behind you; he sounds concerned. "I thought we were back to like we were in LA; are you still mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at you," you say quietly. _Back to like we were in LA_ \- back to silently, desperately crushing on each other, holding hugs just a moment too long, masturbating under the covers at sleepovers and pretending you couldn't hear each other while listening intently. Well yes, in a sense you are - but only you. Taiga, for once the mature one, has moved on.

"Then what's wrong? Please, Tatsuya, you can talk to me." Taiga puts his big hand on your shoulder, warm through your thin t-shirt, and he's standing so close you can feel his body heat, you can sense how tall and strong he is, you're viscerally aware of how good his arms would feel around you, and you drop the chopsticks, turn around, take his worried face in your hands and kiss him.

Taiga goes still. This was a mistake, then - but it's the last chance you'll have, so you want to make the most of it before he pushes you away. You open your mouth a little, tilt your head in an invitation he won't take. You run your tongue over his bottom lip, and feel a shudder run through him before he takes you by the shoulders and gently pulls away.

You keep your eyes closed for a long moment, working up the courage to look him in the eye, then open them to Taiga's blushing face. Well, of course he's blushing: Taiga blushes at romantic scenes in movies and couples kissing in the street. He's looking at you very intently. At least he's not angry.

"Tatsuya," he says, very quietly, then pauses. "I...didn't know," he admits after a moment.

"I wasn't very subtle," you say, drily. Taiga flushes deeper.

"You know I don't notice that kind of stuff," he protests.

"No, that's true. You'd think the matching rings would have done it, but you are indeed utterly impervious to romance." You sigh theatrically. Your heart is still beating too fast.

"Wha - are you serious?" Taiga gapes at you. His hands are still on your shoulders.

" _Matching rings_ , Taiga."

Taiga scrunches up his face unattractively. "But I had a massive crush on you the _whole time_!"

"I noticed, Taiga," you say patiently. Taiga just looks more confused.

"Then why didn't you do anything about it?"

You shrug. "I had bigger things to worry about." Like a growing inferiority complex, you don't say - don't want to rehash _that_ again. Taiga just keeps making that scrunched face.

"All this time?" he asks quietly. Now it's your turn to make a face.

"Pretty much," you admit. "I thought I'd grown out of it, but when we met at that streetball match, I realised pretty quickly that I hadn't." You smile with one corner of your mouth, briefly.

Taiga looks shifty.

"I, uh." He looks away a moment; you take the opportunity to admire his profile. "That is...me too." He looks at the kitchen counter rather than at you.

"Oh Taiga, that's not - it's not the same." There can be no equality between you: not of skill, nor of feeling.

"I'm serious!" He looks back at you, eyes wide and eyebrows raised in an expression of earnestness.

"I know you are," you say, because Taiga wouldn't say something like that unless he really believed it. "But so am I." You've been lovesick for years, sick with love, sick of love, stupidly fixated on a boy who had left you behind and could never understand. "You have to understand, it wasn't just a silly crush, I've been crazy about you since I was twelve-" Your voice has risen in volume and pitch. You close your mouth, refusing to be embarrassed: you blush too obviously.

"But I was always crazy about you!" Taiga puffs up his cheeks in frustration at your refusal to understand. His hands make grasping motions at the air. "It's like-!" He struggles with words for a moment, then gives up and takes your face between his big raw-knuckled hands and presses his mouth to yours, so fierce it takes your breath away.

He tries to pull away after a few seconds of this intent close-mouthed kiss, but you fling your arms around his neck and keep him there. You rest your body weight on him and he takes it. You always knew he'd end up bigger than you, stronger than you. You open your mouth, coax open his lips by moving your own. He responds so sweetly, it makes your heart ache. You think he might never have kissed anybody before. The more you think about it, the surer you are that you're taking his first kiss.

"Tatsuya," he says against your lips, "Tatsuya, I-"

You kiss him again. There's things you aren't ready to hear just yet.


End file.
